New Testament Scholar to Speak at UT Jan. 27

KNOXVILLE — Renowned New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill will kick off the newly-created David L. Dungan Memorial Lecture at 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 27, in the University Center auditorium at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Ehrman’s lecture is titled “Does The New Testament Contain Forgeries? The Surprising Claims of Modern Scholars” and is presented by UT’s Department of Religious Studies.

“We’re very pleased to have this opportunity to host Dr. Ehrman,” said Rosalind Hackett, department head of Religious Studies. “His scholarship is more engaged with the general public than that of most academics, and this will give the public a chance to engage in serious discussion about the New Testament.”

Ehrman’s books on the New Testament and early Christianity include “Misquoting Jesus,” “God’s Problem,” “Jesus, Interrupted,” and “The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot.” He is an expert on the New Testament manuscript tradition, the historical Jesus, the early Christian apocrypha and the apostolic fathers.

Following the presentation, Ehrman will participate in a question-and-answer session and a reception will be held in the University Center Crest Room.

Both events are free and open to the public. Public parking is available in the University Center parking garage.

Sponsors include Chris and Carrie Hodges; the College of Arts and Sciences; the departments of Classics, English, History and Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures; the Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Studies; and the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.